The manufacture of electronic devices such as electronic filters, involves mass production assembly of a number of separate components. An example of such an electronic filter is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,662,494, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein. The '494 filter housing 1 shown in FIG. 1 includes a female connector bore 2, a pre-assembled collet assembly 3 positioned within the bore and having collet contact 4 extending from the collet assembly. The collet contact is secured to a circuit board 5 having discrete electronic components 6A-6D. A conductor wire 7 is secured to the circuit board and extends from the circuit board through a male connector end 8 of the housing.
The filter is assembled using a multi-step process, comprising both efficient and inefficient assembly techniques. The discrete electronic components 6A-6D and the conductor wire 7 are wave soldered to the circuit board 5 contemporaneously in their respective positions. This portion of the manufacturing process is highly efficient, as it is fully automated.
In order to complete the circuit board assembly of FIG. 1, the collet contact 4, which is an integral part of the collet assembly, must also be soldered to the circuit board. The collet assembly 3 is a prefabricated unit from which the integrated collet contact 4 extends. Securing the collet contact 4 to the circuit board 5 requires a separate, hand-soldering step, because the heat generated during wave soldering would melt the plastic components of the collet assembly. This step is both inefficient and costly.
Although the overall structure of the filter in FIG. 1 is relatively simple and inexpensive to manufacture and assemble, the requisite hand-soldering step to secure the collet contact to the circuit board creates an additional, inefficient manual step. The need for such an extra, manual manufacturing step limits the speed and efficiency of the process technique, and increases the costs associated with the manufacture of electronic devices of this nature.
It would be desirable to provide an electronic device with a collet assembly to be mated with a circuit board which does not necessitate the extra, inefficient manual step required in the conventional manufacturing technique described above. It would also be desirable to increase production speed and efficiency, and decrease overall production costs by achieving more efficient automated assembly of the circuit board.